Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Exit Above Review ★★★★★

There are times in Exit Above when, if you thought Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker had a sense of humour, you’d conclude she was taking the mickey. But throughout her long career the Belgian choreographer has shown absolutely no sense of humour in either her work or her stern pronouncements, so you must conclude that there is serious intent throughout the 90 minutes (no interval) of Exit Above.

The subtitle ‘after the tempest’ in three languages refers obliquely to Shakespeare’s eponymous play, but more immediately the setting of this disjointed piece seems to be a post-apocalyptic locus, where a group of people exist with not much purpose.

On stage are the 13 performers of her Rosas company: 11 dancers, a guitarist and Meskerem Mees, a singer with a haunting, other-wordly voice of rare beauty which I would gladly listen to on its own. One star of this review belongs to her.

The stage is stripped bare to its skeleton. The theme is walking, and piece opens with the clustered, staring performers slowly forming a straight line and walking backwards and forwards at great length to the sound of blues musician Robert Johnson’s ‘Walking Blues.’ The musical score draws essentially from the songs of the American South, with a brief passage through Schubert’s ‘Der Wanderer’. To ram home the message, the lyrics are projected onto to the backcloth.

The tone is definitely grungy, Aouatif Boulaich’s black and grey costumes looking very street and a little shabby, except for the voluminous skirts that to a large extent determine to movement of one moustachioed dancer.

For the first part of Exit Above there is no dance to speak of, if by dance you understand codified movement with a detectable point to it. De Keersmaeker herself has said the dance in Exit Above is 'neither "performing", nor effective, nor efficient. It negotiates.' Whatever that means.

For dance then, we have a lot of infantile prancing, hopping and skipping, a little twerking, posturing and grotesque face pulling; although there’s a welcome burst of proficient breaking, which I wanted to hang on to, but it was gone far too soon. There is also some yelling and retching.

Abruptly, the mood changes and loud thumping music leads to an extended episode of mass disco dancing, in which the dancers engage with orgiastic glee. Now Exit Above is definitely less The Tempest and more Lord of the Flies.

Things quieten for the finale, where sadly the message of chastened continuity is conveyed in a couple of songs with strikingly pedestrian lyrics. And then, a long last, it’s all over.

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker has an enthusiastic following, and her company Rosas is a Sadler’s Wells International Associate Company. Exit Above was rapturously received on opening night; so I’m happy to admit I may well be in a minority in my dislike of it; but I found its deliberated disorder not philosophically provocative, as it was clearly meant to be, but rather deeply tedious.